Eye To Eye
by KLPeterson
Summary: Sand finds to his great chagrin that an indiscretion of his from some time ago spawned a child of whom he is not at all fond.
1. Chapter 1

1.

"My good friend Cyrindelle, I think you have no concept of how insufferably polite an elf is supposed to be." The halfling sorcerer sat on the edge of Nar's desk with her legs swinging. She looked overmuch like a stuffed yellow haired doll that had slumped over with its hands upon it tiny knees, hair braided all up in some ridiculous manner. Nar himself was a moon elf sorcerer with pale, white-sheened skin, eyes of an unnatural shade of seawater green, and an overpronounced chin that made gave his sharpened eyebrows an otherworldly drama. He was slight, with his thin white hair gathered up at the back of his head. His home in the Merchant Quarter of Neverwinter was modest, but it was his own. It worked for him- a typical sorcerer's jumble of strange oddities. With the addition of some comfortable chairs, even his few friends didn't mind coming over once in a while. Cyrindelle was one of the few who truly understood him. After all, who could know the soul of a sorcerer better than another? His friend hadn't blinked twice when he had mentioned that in all likelihood, the wizard Sand was his natural father. What could surprise a halfling sorcerer? A halfling never stayed in one place for long, unless it was home. That she'd chosen to grace him with her presence today when he hadn't seen her for months should have been a cause for tale-swapping, perhaps even sharing a glass of wine or two. Instead, he'd unloaded all of his problems on her at the door.

"You take too much from others without asking anything for yourself," she told him, pulling off her gloves, which were soaked by the too-frequent drizzles of the city. "If it's true what you're saying- and I can see the resemblance right here in the face-" she poked a finger in his direction. "You ought to stomp yourself over there right now and demand an explanation."

"Elves don't "stomp" anywhere," Nar murmured bitterly. "I can hardly see myself traipsing into the man's shop spouting drama about some wayward maid whose face he has probably all but forgotten. It was hundreds of years ago, if it's true. What could she want, sending me this after all of this time? Certainly not a son?"

"It could be gold she's after," Cyrindelle agreed. "But remember, Nar, if he's your father, he's a wizard, and you're a sorcerer. "

Nar looked up, finding himself standing in a shaft of light that was finally making its way through the curtains into his study. "Oil and water."

"Spot on. Now, quit feeling sorry for yourself, and pour a girl some of that elven wine. I'm not getting any younger, you know."

"Where are my manners." Nar went to the cabinet dutifully. "I never liked that man, and he never liked me. A wizard can smell a sorcerer from a mile away. What does he do when he discovers he's sired one?" He poured a stream of the too-warm liquid into a glass for her with a slender hand.

Cyrindelle sighed, swirling the fine vintage around inside of her mouth. "There's always denial."

"That sort of encouraging remark might be useful on one of your halfling friends, Cyr, but it has a long way to go to help this one. I'm not certain yet that this is a secret best revealed."

His musings were interrupted by a sharp rap at the door.

The halfling leapt off of his desk in a blur of movement. In a half second she had her face pressed to the window , barely reaching the edge with the tops of her eyes.

"If that's the tax collector, I'm indisposed," Nar said.

"It's not the tax collector." Cyrindelle turned to him with a large grin. "It's dear old Dad."

2.

Nar felt positively green at the gills. He reminded himself that he didn't even like Sand, so there wasn't any use fidgeting. Besides, this was his home, was it not? He could easily tell anyone who vexed him to shove off. It was a comforting thought, however unrealistic. Adopting his most aloof expression, he casually opened the door, leaning on the doorframe. "Yes?" His bored greeting had all of the charm of a wet kobold. "Did I forget to pick up my order this week, Sand? Are you making personal deliveries, now?" Even as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Sand, while himself quite an intimidating conversational prospect despite his small stature, did not appear to be alone. He wore some monstrosity of a gray robe, his hair braided on the sides, Staff of Command in his hands like some prop he needed to make a proper appearance. Behind him trailed a half-veiled green creature that could possibly be female, a male ranger giving Nar dirty looks, a noisily clanking bear of a man in plate mail with a glowing flail dangling from his belt, and a badger that twittered and chirped to itself from time to time. Nar eyed the badger nervously, wondering what he or she had done to annoy Sand. Sand looked him up and down as though scrutinizing some gem for flaws and finding it wanting. "Ah, yes, the Thursday morning fellow, the one that can never seem to get his own order right," he said at last.

"I usually get it right," Nar grumbled.

"You sent it back twice last week, and once the week before," Sand said, putting a ponderous hand to his cheek. "I received your letter, sorcerer, and I must admit that you have an unusual way of attempting to draw attention to yourself."

The green female walked up from behind Sand in the street, her voice echoing strangely as she spoke. "Know that the truth is not often what it seems," she said mysteriously.

"When I need an extraplanar opinion, I'll ask for it," Sand replied, pushing his way past Nar into the little house. "I often wondered what kind of haven one like yourself would build. It lacks a certain something... yes, of course. Books. You sorcerers seem to believe that somehow all of the knowledge in the universe ought to come groveling at your doorstep. Take this letter, for example." He retrieved a very familiar looking scroll out from one of the packs at his waist. "Poorly phrased. Incorrect spelling." He brought the parchment to his nose, where he took a long draw from it. "Low grade calfskin. You might have spent your coin on something that at least holds a rune for more than a year at a time."

"I didn't write it," Nar said, spreading his hands. "I got one of my own." Cyrindelle sat happily in a nearby chair, legs crossed, watching the proceedings. She moved her leg aside as the badger poked at her ankle in order to find a place to stand when the strange party poured into Nar's living room.

"Haven't we got something better to do than look up your lost relatives, Sand?" The dangerous looking ranger, who had been paring his fingernails with an unfriendly looking dagger, snatched away the letter that the white haired elf held up. Nar was about to protest such manhandling of his property but thought better of it when he noticed the unrelenting scowl on the scarred face of the one who'd taken it. "To the Esteemed Sorcerer Nar, from your loving mother," he read in a mocking tone. "This ought to be entertaining." As the ranger unfurled it, all eyes were on him, even those of the silent knight, whose steady gaze looked more than a bit unfriendly as it fell on the other man.

"Many a year has passed and many a tear has fallen since the day that you were taken from me." He paused for effect. "How touching." Nar and Sand studiously avoided even a mere glance at one another, though one of Sand's eyebrows was slowly rising.

"Read the letter, Bishop." The knight's rolling voice filled the silence.

"If you'll give me a minute, paladin, I'm just getting to the best part." Bishop licked his lips and then resumed reading aloud. "If this is what you wait to hear, you will be disappointed, I fear, for I am nothing touching on what a parent should be, nor have I ever cared a whit for squandering tears over the loss of some burdenous squalling brat at my knee. Be assured that it brings me great pleasure at this hour to reveal the truth to you. I am the sorceress Elisa Bel'Juazra, your mother. Your father, dear son..." Bishop allowed the last words to seethe with the sarcasm they deserved. "...was an indiscretion of mine that goes by the name of Sand. It is my duty, after all, as a mother to see that her child has the proper mentor, is it not? I am certain that the two of you will have much to say to each other." Bishop handed the letter back, scratching absently at the sparse hair on his chin.

"A woman I rather like, I think. Why don't the two of you have it out once and for all, have a wizard's duel." He'd made the question a statement with the ring of finality. Sand, who could usually be counted on to sling the proper jab, was gnawing on his lower lip.

"Bel'Juazra. Yes. The red veiled Lady. I admit that it has a certain poetic justice to it, if you take into account that I got much use out of that wand of wonder at the time. "

"Sand, I'm surprised at you," Bishop smirked. "I didn't know you had it in you. I hope you at least gave her a night to remember." He laughed heartily, while the paladin simply glared.

"You seduced my mother for a wand?" Nar's jaw hung at the implications.

"It was a rare wand. A very unique thing to get one's hands on in any case." As if sensing that this defense was a thin one, he shifted to a defensive position, his arms crossed. "And she was no Lady. As you can see, she took delight in kicking a man's knees out from under him and then giving him up to the Hells." Cyrindelle was clapping her hands with glee. "What does your letter say?" She looked to Sand with anticipation.

"Your unlucky offspring, the _sorcerer_ Nar, wishes to make your acquaintance at your earliest convenience." Sand looked over his newly acquired son with a curled lip and a wilting expression. "A truthseer would be able to settle this, I believe. Zhjaeve?"

"Know that the letter speaks the truth," said Zhjaeve.


	2. Chapter 2

_2._

_I like pretty things. Pretty baubles, though tossed onto my lap by a father who smiles far too fondly, pretty words to fill the head. Pretty men who tell pretty lies. Hardship, courage, loyalty, what are these things to one such as I? I have never had a day where my meals were not brought to me or my feet were not oiled. _

_The name of Elisa Bel'Juazra is as exalted as it is feared, for I am in these lands know for my fair face, though perhaps diseased of soul. My bloodline wills beauty. It has always been so. For this reason I have always chosen my bedpartners carefully. The fishwives in the markets spit my name with venom; the men summon my image behind closed eyes when they kiss their hunchbacked wives. _

Her telepathic voice fell on Sand's perfect elven ear as clearly as if she had spoken. Trailing behind him by a foot's length was Nar, opening and closing his mouth uselessly like a beached animal searching for breath. It could have been the effect of the ceilings of beaten gold or the lavish waste of gems sprinkled throughout the keystones of the archways through which they walked. It might also have been the clear pool where the lady's maids sat dangling their feet in the water, their laughter like music, precious spiced flowers sprinkled throughout the deep bath as if they had no value. Or the elven lady herself- statuesque, still, shackled by one ankle to the cushioned couch where she sat smoking on a long pipe filled with cherryweed.

She was unchanged, unviolated by time, as though Sand had merely walked from her chamber yesterday. With a turn of his hand behind him, the wizard motioned to his son to be still. It came upon him at once that the lady was not opening her mind to him, but rather in a trance wherein her mind spoke to a third entity. It was as if her secrets were being demanded of her- and, because her ladies lacked magical prowess, they saw and heard nothing but her ladyship lost to her own thoughts.

It was the shackle that drew Sand's eye.

_"I wonder if you can speak of your sins so easily as you speak of your beauty," _an obviously demonic voice sounded, startling Sand out of his thoughts. His sensitive nose twitched. There was another scent that the cherryroot was hiding- leave it to his expert nose to discern the underlying odor of brimstone that it was meant to hide. The woman's eyes were closed. If she was in any way aware of her visitors, she gave no sign of it. Sand reached out with his magical energies to send exploring tendrils throughout the room that would make clear any hidden entities. Nar watched all of this with the detachment of a student. Surely there was something to learn from the way the wizard's eyes moved behind their lids, seeing but unseeing, or from the small motions of his hands. It galled him that his father could learn any spell, take on any new knowledge, open his mind to whatever came close to its reaching grasp.

_If I could get the hand movement right... _sweat beaded on his forehead as he struggled to latch on to Sand's mental fingers combing through the room. He felt his power rise in a surge from the core of his being. It would go no further than the center of his chest. At last there was only the possibility of the spell, but it would not be birthed, and so he cursed under his breath. _You are a sorcerer. You are by nature limited. Do nothing, and do not interrupt me, boy. _

He tried not to take the rebuke to heart, but he felt it keenly. What kind of intelligence did that take, what level of mental discipline to put so strong a spell into play and still be able to discern the interruption of another mind? Nar crossed his arms petulantly. Yes, he was a sorcerer. While he could send fire through the streets of this city that would go into the history tomes, he couldn't get his head around a simple location spell.

_"Speak, Bel'Juazra," _the demon commanded. "_If it is your soul you seek to save, you have offered me little in the way of bargaining. I would know the sweetness of your sins, and, if you will not speak them, I shall wrench them from your being." _

The ladies that sat idly in their pool waved at Nar gently. They could not hear what the two men heard, he realized. Not only were they completely oblivious to arcane energy, but they were obviously bespelled in some way as if they were little more than furniture. It was unnatural to sit so idly by while their Lady was sat unmoving with visitors before her, her mind being rifled through with ruthless extraplanar fingers.

Sand came back to himself suddenly. He looked over his shoulder at his son, blue eyes meeting pale green. "He is within her. He is pillaging her memories. Can you hear them?"

"Yes, yes, I can hear them," Nar replied testily. Then, more calmly, "Forgive me, Sand. It has been many years since I admitted to myself that there are places a wizard's mind can go where mine will never roam."

This small admission took the wizard by surprise. In a brief, friendly gesture he reached out his hand and rested it on his newly acquired son's shoulder. "Perhaps there are things that we could both stand to learn, one from the other. We must listen to her tale as he brings it from her. She is marked for execution. The shackle binds her, though her prison is a soft one."

"She is under house arrest," Nar said.

"Yes. It is tradition here. The number of shackles reduces as her time draws close. She does not have long, I think."

_"Now tell me of this great sin of yours, mortal woman. If it pleases me, we will see if some intercession may be granted in your predicament."_

The spell was a strong one of compelling. She would answer.

_The magic bloodline of Bel'Juazra can pass to a daughter. My womb was my father's last hope. There is something bred into us that can make the urge to procreate a frantic one with the passing of years. I never felt the calling, and yet my father became obsessed that I might carry on our line. I would have a son or a daughter. His word was law. It was not enough that he owned me. Marriage means little; the survival of the bloodline is paramount. I was stubborn, standing firm against his demands, though he supplied me with the company of many a young sorcerer. The sorcerers came from lands all around to seek Father's ridiculously high offer in gold for any who could get me with child. Still I continued to scorn his efforts, turning away even the most comely of them, desire them as I might. I had seen other women swell with child. I knew how their beauty waned with each birthing. Beauty was mine. She was the very fabric of my name. How could he so easily plot to take her from me, when she was the only thing that I could claim for my own? I was a sorceress, yes, but I was a woman first, and this body was my gift from the gods. Mine! _

_I forced his hand. He would tell me this as if such words would wring from me less contempt for him. But to place a geas upon one's own daughter! He must have been very desperate indeed to conceive of such a thing. I knew it for what it was when it came upon me. You have never known such lust as this, insatiable, burning in the limbs, day and night tormenting, maddening. Before he left for his travel that season, he told me how I could bring the compelling to its end. There was only one remedy for the curse he had placed upon my body. The cure was new life. _

_Truly, he had trapped me. I thought long upon what I would do. At long last I decided that I would thwart his purpose at its very heart. The bloodline of Bel'Juazra that had so blindly ensorcelled him and chained me to my own body like a slave would end. I would give him what he thought he wanted. The plan needed only to be set in motion. The choosing of my unwitting mate would be the key._

_I saw him when he came into our dwelling by the side of a diplomat. The elf was well-groomed, well-spoken. His eyes searched the room as the diplomat spoke to the legal representative of our household. If he thought me beautiful, he did not react as most men, though his gaze landed upon me from time to time in the way that one appraises a parcel of property one is considering. When he spoke, it was with an interjection of a wit that left my ladies twittering amongst themselves. All of these things would have gone unnoticed had I not caught a faint movement of his hand. The diplomat made an interesting point. We sat back stunned by our sudden interest in his offer. It came to me that the diplomat seemed strangely beautiful to me at that moment. I turned to my fellow elf with a smile, never revealing that I now knew what he was. He did not shine with the charisma of a sorcerer. Instead, the power rose from that keen intellect he could not easily conceal. I sensed his hunger for the arcane. And I knew that he would respond as simply to the carelessly discarded artifact on my sidetable as a common woman would a bauble. I had only to display it on my person...he came then to my bed easily. _

_"You sought to corrupt your own bloodline." The demon laughed, a booming sound that swept through the room and unsteadied Nar. _

_"Can you tell me that the ploy has not had its benefits? The wizard served his purpose. The brat ruined my womb; the magic of sorcerer and wizard battled one another even before birth. And then, though he was most wroth with me, Father cast the vile little being as far from this house as was possible. That loss gained me my freedom, and Father's grudging respect. Never again would he deal with me in such a manner."_

_"Are you so free now?" The voice resonated. "You will die upon the morrow for your crimes."_


	3. Chapter 3

3.

"I regret that it took us so long to arrive," Casavir said in his resounding voice as he walked up from behind the two of them. "But Only Qara and Zhjaeve were requested to join our leader on his parley with Syndey Natale, and so the two of us were given leave to join you."

Sand nodded distractedly. Some part of him appreciated that the two steadfast companions, Casavir and Khelgar, had come all of this way to be at his side in facing the shadows of his past. But somehow, though the dawn came with golden light and a warmth that revived the limbs, he could not find comfort in the presence of those he'd come to trust. Khelgar, while sturdy as the rock below their feet, was, well, a dwarf, and despite his attempts to lose his innate prejudices, Sand found nothing in common with the hack-happy warrior. He and his son Nar were here to stand witness to an execution- and the end of a story that badly needed closure. Casavir could at least hold his own in conversation, though he would never be a great scholar by any means. Remembering his manners, he gave a slight bow in Casavir's direction.

"It is good that you have come. Bel'Juazra deserves a witness to the proceedings to ensure that the sentence is carried out humanely. Do not imagine that we are here for our pleasure." Sand turned back to the execution arena, waving a hand to indicate that Nar should be seated beside him. The two found an unoccupied stretch of bench among the rabble who were even now pushing and shoving for purchase.

"Nothing humane about an axe as big as that." Khelgar's eyes rose from the bottom of the double-bladed jagged axe where it dug into the sand that supported the block to its heavy grip. It was easily bigger than himself, and, despite his wrath at Grobnar's use of himself as a unit of measurement, he realized that he often found himself sizing up weapons by whether or not he'd be able to wield them. He'd have to have been twice his size to even lift that monstrosity- fortunately, the executioner was. The executioner's shoulders put even Casavir's to shame. He was a thick ox of a man with a beard dyed black and red in alternating streaks. He wore the typical executioner's mask over his blunt, sloping forehead.

"She has committed many evils," Casavir said evenly. Finding space for his bulk was more of a task, although he had foregone his usual plate mail in favor of sensible traveling leathers. Khelgar pushed his way into the bench beside Casavir, snorting and cursing, his favorite warhammer, Storm, firmly between his knees as though he would need it at any moment. The execution made for a grand public spectacle. There were food vendors pressing hot pies on the audience that had gathered, loud guffaws, ribald jokes, and a general air of anticipation. The first execution of the season brought out people from all backgrounds.

Nar felt a shudder of distaste ripping through him. He loosened his color with one hand, thinking of his comfortable home in his quiet street, his favorite teapot, his spot by the hearth. Then he sneezed violently, drawing a glare from Sand.

"The ultimate betrayal," Sand whispered, as if in renewed horror at the memory. "To kill one's own father. Is she so easy to condemn, though, paladin? There are some who would say that he was deserving of his fate."

Casavir flushed deeply at the reference to the gossip in question. If the rumors were true, and Elisa Bel'Juazra's father had earned her loathing contempt with his lecherous advances upon his own daughter, could anyone condemn this final act as anything other than an act of desperation? But if what the truths the demon had wormed from her were based in fact, why had she not spoken in her own defense when brought to trial? It made little sense to Casavir, who saw an order to the world that separated true from false, black from white.

His thoughts were interrupted by the rising jeers of the crowd in one massive body of sound. The accused was being led into the arena by a single guardsman. She wore a scandalously translucent gown in the deep red that she favored. Her head was not hung in shame as many would have hoped. Instead, she lifted her jaw defiantly to the headsman as if daring him to drink in the sight of her. Sand drew a breath in slowly. The night before, she had been so different in the thrall of the demon who sought to bargain for her soul. It had been so easy to turn to leave the room when the charisma and fire that was Elisa sat unmoving and lost within her own mind. Her hair blew softly with the breeze around her bronzed shoulders. Within that veil, he knew, were eyes that flared like the gems that had adorned her throat on the night he had taken her long ago. And yes, he had wanted the wand. Yes, he'd planned every step, every seductive touch and word. But he'd not planned on the memory of the tender give that her skin would have at the end of his fingertips or how she'd react to a kiss on the underside of her knee. He had no defense against the vision of the loveliness of her legs intertwining with his own. Had there ever been before, and would there ever be again, a beauty like Bel'Juazra that would stain his memory so? He let out the breath he'd taken, feeling uncomfortably exposed.

"Remove her veil." The executioner's harsh bark silenced any murmur that the crowd had left in it. Elisa Bel'Juazra stood at last stripped of that simple piece of filmy gauze that had covered her eyes, and the audience drew a collective breath. Her beauty, freed, untamed, stunned those that had come to see her to her end. But there was more than defiance in her eyes. Nar clasped his hands tightly as his chest clenched in the realization that the otherness that he saw there was something akin to sorrow.

"Are we going to let them do this?" He whispered in his father's ear. "Why doesn't she do something? She could burn them all to ashes if she wanted."

"The anklet that she wears is ensorceled. She can no more cast a spell than free herself without a key."

"Then we should give her one," Nar said. "This isn't right. If what she said was true, he deserved to die, didn't he?"

"And where do you propose we stash one very dangerous, fugitive sorceress?" Sand queried, watching intently as the guard led the lady to the block.

"Do you truly believe this woman's claim?" Casavir pressed from the bench behind them.

"You're out of your blasted minds, all of you," Khelgar grumbled.

Sand sighed. "This is going to take some creativity."

Nar braced himself for torrents of fire or random crowd members being turned into mind flayers. Later, he'd think with wonder on his father's use of subtlety. Sand's hands flickered with the first movements of a spell- and then, before any of the four could say another word, the executioner lifted up his axe with both of his hands, as big as small hams, and began to charge into the crowd. Nar shook his head in admiration as people scattered in terror. The guardsman began to charge after the crazed man, shouting after him with his sword raised. Now, all it would take would be a well-placed invisibility spell...

Elisa Bel'Juazra winked out of existence.

--

"Just what do you suppose you're doing, stuffing a woman into a sack like a common... oh. It's you." The party of four and their traveling cart had already been on the road for a good bit when Sand sat the Bag of Holding onto the wood frame and opened the lip of it. At the time, he'd been proud of the acquisition, and he now felt quite pleased with himself as Bel'Juazra pulled herself out of it with her hair plastered to her head. She didn't look quite so lovely after an hour stuffed into the black hole of a room with little air to breathe.

"You can put anything into a Bag of Holding," Sand said smugly. "As long as it'll fit through the hole."

"You're a fool."

"And you're an ungrateful, pampered demon-loving whore, Bel'Juazra. But I suppose you didn't deserve to die. I have studied much of justice and have had a great deal of time to do so. You were a fool to try to bargain with that creature."

Elisa fiddled with her hair as she stared down at the cart's bottom. "Perhaps I was. But what do you get out of all of this, Sand?"

The wizard glanced over at Nar, who was chewing on a bit of orange as he enjoyed the passing of the landscape. "Oh, I imagine I've gained something. A good challenge, or at the very least a regular customer."

"You're becoming sentimental in your old age, wizard. A pity. You could have been so much more had you been willing to pay the price."

"I may have rescued you, Lady Bel'Juazra, but I don't have to listen to your scathing drivel." With that, he gathered himself up with as much dignity as possible and went over to visit with his son.


End file.
